Home Strangerthingau

Chapter 8

Hope

"And then he just straight up told us that he couldn't do anything else." Will complained. After the events of the night before, Will called a meeting early that Saturday morning to tell them what had happened.

"Well, maybe he's right." Max was the first one to speak after a long silence.

Mike's head whipped toward her with an offended look. "How could you say that?"

"Think about it!" Max said getting more and more annoyed with Mike. "We have been looking for him over a year now and everything Hopper looks at or finds just leads him to a dead end."

"That doesn't mean we should give up! It means we aren't looking hard enough!"

"Brenner can hide his tracks well, we all know that. We also know we're just chasing our tales here. Why make Hopper keep looking for him when we are no closer to finding him than we were a year ago?"

"So what? You're saying that you don't want to find him now!" Mike said with his face turning red with anger.

"Of course I want to find him!" Max yelled at him with tears brimming her eyes. "More than anything. I want to make him pay for taking away my best friend. For hurting us. But there is no use trying to find him if we're just going to be running around like headless chickens."

Everyone stayed silent. They rarely seen Max cry, last time being the day after they found El. She has always been the tough one of the group, and now it looked like she was the weakest. Like she had been tough for so long that now she's breaking.

A sob escaped her lips and Lucas pulled her to him giving her a hug. "It's okay." He said to her quietly making little circles with his hand on her back.

Mike excused himself from the room and went upstairs to grab something to drink. He made his way to the kitchen and saw Nancy getting Holly some juice. Nancy looked up and saw Mike's face. She knew something was wrong with him right away.

She looked back at Holly and gave her her juice cup and said, "How about you go watch tv with dad, okay?"

"Okay!" Holly said sipping her juice and leaving the room.

Once Nancy knew that Holly was out of ear shot she turned to Mike with a worried expression. "What's wrong?"

"Hopper." He said shaking his head. "He's giving up on them."

"What?" Nancy gasped. "Wh-why?"

"Hasn't has a lead that helped at all. Therefore, he thinks that he will never get one." He said taking a seat as Nancy took a seat across from him.

Silence fell over the two, just thinking in their own minds. Nancy snapped out of it and looked at her brother who was deep in thought.

"Mike." She said snapping him out of his daze.

"Hm." He replied turning to her. Even looking at him she knew he wasn't exactly here in the kitchen with her. He was somewhere else. She had seen this look on him many times. She always wondered what he was thinking but she never brought it up.

"What are you going to do about it?" Nancy asked hoping for a good answer.

"What can I do?" Mike stated.

"You're giving up too?" Nancy spoke in shock. "I thought that you would have always been the one to never give up."

"Well, if Hopper's giving up, what are we going to do that will help find answers? There's nothing left for us to do."

"Well," Nancy said making sure to choose her words carefully, "there is something you can do."

"What?"

"Keep hope. Hope that one day you'll find him and El will get the justice she deserves."

"Oh yeah, keep hope. That kind of reminds me of when you said keep faith and look at where we are right now." Mike said throwing his arms up gesturing around the empty room. "We are in the kitchen, two days after the one year anniversary of her findings, talking about her and the people that murdered her."

Nancy closed her eyes and shook her head not wanting to think about it. "That has nothing to do with this." She said quietly looking at her brother again. "I said to have faith because I didn't know she was in the lake. I didn't know about the people that wanted to hurt her. I just thought she had gotten lost in the woods or something. So I told you to have faith that they would find her before she starved in the woods. But now I'm telling you to have hope. Hope that a clue will suddenly pop up and help. And maybe, maybe, Hopper looked over something. You guys should check the files he had again. You guys are smart, don't let a fallen tree stand in the way of you getting to your destination."

And with that said, she stood up and left the room to leave Mike alone with his thoughts. What he didn't know, was that now Nancy was left alone with her thoughts too.

Her mind kept playing her speech in her head over and over again like it was on a record player. You guys should check the files he had again. You guys should check the files. Check the files. The files. Maybe there might be something. She would just need to get them.

Jonathan, where are you when I need you?

Authors note
Thank you for reading!!! Again I really enjoyed writing this chapter, I don't know why.

If you guys are wondering when I'm going to be updating Letters for El, I don't know. I plan on updating it, it's just that book is a little harder for me to write. I'm not really good with the young love type stuff. I'm trying my best. But updates might be a lot slower with that book. Just give me time.

Thank you!!! See you later!!